Year: 2016

Donald Trump “beleaguered after an erratic performance in Monday’s debate — with viewership as high as 100 million — retreated to his Fox News and Twitter cocoon. There, he took potshots at debate moderator Lester Holt and cited unscientific Internet surveys to prove he’d outperformed Hillary Clinton. And his advisers hinted that he might consider skipping the next showdown between the candidates, set for Oct. 9 in St. Louis,” Politico reports. “It was a scarcely concealed defensive posture from the Trump camp, which found itself defending Trump against accusations of sexism (even as he redoubled his criticism of a former Miss Universe he had previously called ‘Miss Piggy,’ saying on Tuesday she had gained ‘a massive amount of weight’). His surrogates, too, joined the pile-on against Holt, describing “hostile” questioning about his position on the Iraq War, his role in the birther controversy and his refusal to release his tax returns.”

Reporting on the results of online polls..? How "Fox News" can continue to call itself "news" is beyond me. Online polls declare Trump debate winner, despite media consensus for Clinton…

Andrew Sullivan:

What can one say? I was afraid that Trump’s charisma and stage presence and salesmanship might outshine Hillary Clinton’s usually tepid and wonkish instincts. I feared that the facts wouldn’t matter; that a debate would not take place. And it is to Clinton’s great credit that she prepared, and he didn’t, and that she let him hang himself. His utter lack of preparation; his doubling down on transparent lies; his foreign-policy recklessness; his racial animosity; his clear discomfort with the kind of exchange of views that is integral to liberal democracy; his instinctual belligerence — all these suggest someone who has long lived in a deferential bubble that has become filled with his own reality. Clinton was not great at times; her language was occasionally stilted; she missed some obvious moments to go in for the kill; but she was solid and reassuring and composed. I started tonight believing she needed a game-changer to alter the trajectory of this race. I may, of course, be wrong, trapped in my own confirmation bias and bubble — but I thought she did just that. I’ve been a nervous wreck these past two weeks; my nerves are calmed now.

Josh Marshall on the state of the polling race:

First, let's compare the 2012 and 2016 races. Obviously, we have the full race data set for 2012 while more than a month of 2016 is still to happen. Still the comparison is instructive. I've filtered each chart to begin in May. [Click through to TPM at the link above to see the charts]. A few things immediately jump out. First, the 2012 race is much more stable than the 2016 race. This is likely do to having four candidates, two fairly unliked candidates and a race that is at least to some degree upsetting recent voting patterns. Second, Clinton has maintained a lead at all times. The lead ranges from very small (less than a single percentage point) to fairly substantial (high single digits). (It is important to note that statistically speaking, when you are talking about an average of many polls, a lead of perhaps two percentage points is not a virtual tie.) This captures the key factors in the race. It is close by historical standards but not closer than 2012, judged by the leader's margin. Indeed, over the course of the period we're looking at the 2016 margin has usually been higher than 2012's, sometimes substantially higher. Does this mean Clinton more likely to win than Trump? Yes. Does this mean it's close? Yes. Can you just assume Clinton will win and not worry about it? No. Should you channel your anxiety into self-doubt, recrimination and drama? Please don't. Pretty much everything else seems like a matter of semantics. My own hunch is that that line separating the two candidates is likely more durable than some suspect. But that's just my own hunch.